ABSTRACT
Chapter 6 takes a closer look at the workings of KidTech industry, its corporate infrastructures, and its professional ecosystems by focusing primarily on Roblox. It begins with a brief history of Roblox and explains how is differs from both older online games and platforms like Minecraft and Fortnite. The chapter demonstrates how Roblox disrupts traditional media categories of market, audience, and content, and in doing so realigns the relationships between media and advertisers while repositioning the child. KidTech platforms are increasingly becoming the primary sites through which advertisers reach the child audiences. The chapters argues that Roblox constructs narratives of children’s autonomy to justify creating corporately controlled digital enclosures that isolate children’s digital lives from adults. The kid is being shaped into a tech-savvy naturalized citizen of corporate digital enclosures. Using the metaphor of a moated walled garden, I argue that this of digital enclosure that isolates children from parental involvement represents a potential full-scale corporate takeover of children’s lives.
